Friends of the Holy Land

Friends of the Holy Land: Supporting Christian Communities in the Middle East

Friends of the Holy Land (FHL) is a UK-based ecumenical charity founded in 2009 with a simple but profound mission: to secure a resilient and enduring future for Christians living in the Holy Land. The Christian presence in the region — particularly in the West Bank, Gaza, Israel, and Jordan — has been steadily declining for decades due to political instability, conflict, economic hardship, and emigration. FHL exists to offer practical help, spiritual support, and above all hope, ensuring that Christian families can remain in the land where their faith has its deepest roots.

GAZA

One of the most urgent dimensions of FHL’s work has been its response to the crisis in Gaza – especially since recent war and conflict have created massive humanitarian, medical, emotional, and psychological need. Alongside American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, they partner with local Christian institutions and churches, such as Al-Ahli Arab Hospital (Anglican) and Holy Family Church (RC). They deliver trauma therapy from both these sites, as well as emotional and psychosocial support to children, caregivers, and families caught in the conflict.

What their work in Gaza looks like

Here are some of the main strands of what Friends of the Holy Land does in terms of trauma therapy and emotional support in Gaza:

Supporting Al-Ahli Arab Hospital

Al-Ahli is the only Christian hospital in Gaza, under the Anglican Diocese (more precisely, Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem). It is one of the few health institutions able to remain functioning under very difficult conditions.

A generation of children carry psychological scars

Through FHL’s funding, in collaboration with the Diocese and other Christian partner bodies

(such as the Latin Patriarchate, etc.), money is sent to help with psychosocial support and trauma counselling. This is for children and caregivers suffering from PTSD, chronic anxiety, depression, fear, and disrupted behaviour due to bombing, displacement, loss of family members, and the collapse or interruption of schooling and regular life.

The hospital runs trauma clinics or psychosocial programs that combine assessment by multidisciplinary teams, structured support, case management, referrals where specialized psychiatric care is needed.

There are also programmes that incorporate creative, expressive therapies — arts, play, group sessions — to give children safe spaces to express what they’ve experienced, to share emotions, reduce isolation, rebuild a sense of normal childhood.

Working via Holy Family Church and the Latin Patriarchate

The Holy Family Church in Gaza is the only Catholic parish in Gaza and includes associated institutions like the Holy Family School and kindergarten, plus homes for children and elderly with disabilities, run by religious sisters and communities.

During crises, Holy Family Church has played a sheltering role: many Christians and Muslims take refuge there when bombings or conflict intensify. FHL supports relief efforts via churches and church buildings that offer shelter, food, water, medicine.

In addition, the Church helps in providing more stable emotional, spiritual, social support: schooling for children continues as much as possible even under threat; children have lessons, activities; families and young people are offered pastoral care, prayer, routines where feasible, Bible study or catechism, etc., all of which help provide structure, meaning, hope amid chaos.

Challenges they face

Severe physical destruction and danger:

Hospitals, churches, and other institutions are being bombed or damaged. There are shortages of medicine, fuel, clean water, food. The humanitarian logistics are extremely difficult because access is restricted, aid convoys are often delayed, limited in number.

Large numbers of displaced or sheltering people:

Many are living in church compounds, including Holy Family Church, or in other buildings considered “safe”. These environments are crowded, resources are stretched.

Mental health resource shortage:

There is a lack of trained mental health professionals in large numbers, and high demand means capacity is strained. Many of the children need long-term care; trauma does not resolve quickly.

Ongoing insecurity:

Air strikes, shelling, and military operations create continuing trauma, even for those receiving therapy. The conditions under which therapy must be carried out are unpredictable and often unsafe.

Nuns and clergy refuse to leave the churches of Gaza City, choosing to minister to the sick and wounded

Why what they do is essential

Early intervention helps reduce long-term harm:

By providing psychosocial support, counselling, stable routines (school, play, spiritual activity), FHL (through its partners) helps children process grief, fear, loss — reducing likelihood of very damaging mental health issues (like PTSD, anxiety disorders) that might last a lifetime.

The community gets supported together:

Caregivers (parents, displaced families) also suffer trauma. Supporting them helps children too, since children’s wellbeing is deeply tied to how safe and emotionally supported their caregivers are.

Spiritual, social, emotional resilience:

The Church as institution is a provider not just of physical shelter but of meaning, ritual, community. Having faith-based support helps people maintain hope, cope with uncertainty, maintain identity and dignity.

Practical side by side help:

The therapeutic work often goes hand in hand with meeting basic needs - food, shelter, water, medical care. Without relief of immediate physical needs, emotional support would be far less effective. FHL ensures its funding is used for both kinds of needs.

Impact & scope

Since October 2023, in the first few months of the war, FHL was able to send over £140,000 in emergency funds to help with provisions, medical supplies, food, etc., via its local contacts. That includes support for trauma counselling and psychosocial work.

FHL has given grants in recent years in the hundreds of thousands of pounds; their total raised since 2009 is about £9 million, and in 2023-24 they gave out about £672,000 in grants.

Hundreds of children have been reached through the hospital’s trauma clinics and psychosocial programs. For example, in one of the Ahli children’s trauma clinics, the number is in the order of 650 children plus over 100 caregivers in certain programs.

The work of Friends of the Holy Land in Gaza, particularly via Al-Ahli Hospital and the Holy Family Church, is both life-saving and life-restoring. It addresses immediate physical and material needs, but crucially also tackles psychological wounds – fear, loss, grief, anxiety – that are less visible yet equally damaging if left untreated. Their blending of medical, social, spiritual, and emotional support makes a real difference, especially for children whose childhoods are being torn apart.

The Wider Impact

Care for the elderly is another area of focus. 

In Bethlehem, FHL supports St. Martha’s House, the only day care centre for elderly women in the city. Many of these women are widows with no family support and little income. The centre provides meals, medical attention, companionship, and spiritual enrichment, allowing them to live with dignity in their later years.

Crisis response is also a hallmark of the charity’s work. 

Whether it is providing food parcels during COVID-19 lockdowns, repairing homes damaged by conflict, or supplying urgent medical care, FHL acts quickly when communities are under pressure. This flexibility allows the organisation to respond to emerging needs while maintaining its long-term commitment to stability and resilience.

In 2023-24 alone, Friends of the Holy Land distributed around £672,000 in grants, directly assisting more than 2,000 Christians. Their aid stretches from scholarships in Bethlehem to medical bills in Jordan, from housing support in the West Bank to emergency relief in Gaza. Behind each figure is a human story: a child able to stay in school, an elderly woman finding companionship, a family receiving trauma care after surviving violence.

The charity’s approach is grounded in partnership with local churches and institutions. This ensures that support is well-targeted, culturally sensitive, and trusted by the communities it serves. It also reinforces the role of Christian institutions as centres of stability and service to all, regardless of religion — a vital witness in regions fractured by conflict.

School of Joy in Bethlehem

A Mission of Hope

At its heart, Friends of the Holy Land exists to keep hope alive. Their work is not only about addressing material poverty or trauma but also about affirming dignity, faith, and resilience. By sustaining Christian communities in the Holy Land, they preserve a living connection to the cradle of Christianity and ensure that future generations will continue to worship, learn, and serve in the land of Christ’s birth.

From classrooms in Bethlehem to hospital wards in Gaza, from elderly care centres to parish shelters, FHL’s work is diverse yet united by one purpose: to stand alongside the Christians of the Holy Land in their struggles and their hopes. In doing so, they remind the world that these communities are not forgotten — and that solidarity, expressed in prayer, giving, and practical aid, can bring light in even the darkest of circumstances.

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